The Rapid Ascension of Pinterest and Social Shopping Sites

Daily deals are so yesterday. Social shopping is the new black of online commerce.

This year, in New York, Fashion Week (February 9 to 16) and Social Media Week (February 13 to 17) will converge. What you may not realize is that fashion and social media already intersect: You see, they share a deep online relationship that's fueled by shopping.

Social shopping is the new black of online commerce, taking the place of last season's daily deals craze. Keeping on top of the trend, Groupon, the last next big thing, bought social shopping site Mertado last month.

The designer label among the brand names is Pinterest, a site where online pinboards offer virtual window shopping. Pinterest passed the 10 million unique monthly visitors mark faster than any other site and now has 11.7 million monthly uniques, according to comScore data obtained by TechCrunch.

Yet, some in the Internet community have been dismissive of the site, even in the face of its outstanding growth. The primary reason Pinterest isn't taken seriously is because its user base is mostly women ages 18 to 34 from the Midwest. But a Pew Internet & American Life study labeled women ages 18 to 29 "power users of social networking." Not to mention, the latest State of Style report found women spend 40 percent more of their disposable income on clothing each month than men do.

Pinterest is far from the only site or app looking to cash in on the market for social shopping. There are 12 examples of some of the top sites in the following story. Then there are sites like Fancy, Nuji, and Playwho, which are up-and-comers, and the Pinterest knockoffs that say as much with their names, such as StylePin and Pinspire.

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